NEW ORLEANS — In hindsight, it seems ridiculous. Nick Nurse, an assistant coach for the Raptors, has been tasked with adjusting his team’s offence to better fit the modern NBA. Chris Finch, an assistant for the Pelicans, is in charge of retrofitting a dynamic, pass-happy offence around two of the most dynamic big men in the game. As a coach, you have to be aware of what is happening on both sides of the ball, but Nurse and Finch are essentially offensive co-ordinators at this point of their careers.

Rewind a decade, though, and one of the two was going to have to take care of the other end. London had just be awarded the 2012 Olympics, and, as is often the case, the host nation devoted some resources to improve performance in a sport in which it has a limited history of success. Finch, a long-time player and coach with Sheffield of the British Basketball League, was the head coach. Nurse, whose teams in Manchester routinely battled atop the league with Sheffield, served as...